Discussion September 2001

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

34 participants
43 discussions

Do we still talk about Free Software?
by Reinhard Müller 26 Sep '01

26 Sep '01

What has happened to the "We talk about Free Software" campaign? I've seen that the link has been removed from the main page, and I didn't find a link to the campaign page anywhere. Thanks, Reinhard

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[love@cptech.org: [IPN] EC consultation on the Hague treaty on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments]
by Xavi Drudis Ferran 26 Sep '01

26 Sep '01

Sorry for crossposting, but I think we should send some comments to this new EU consultation, because as many have said, it raises several issues. It is probably too radical to be accepted, but it doesn't hurt to show strong opposition. I have still to read much (that is, direct sources). I've only read opinions on the treaty, not the treaty itself. Apart from problems on freedom of speech, etc. it would void any attempt to stop DMCA-like laws and legalisation of sw-patents in Europe, because any country that has such laws could impose them upon Europeans. <Reminder Links> http://petition.eurolinux.org/hague/ (english) FFII and Eurolinux pages on this subject http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/whatyoushouldknow.html Consumer Project on Technology (USA) http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/06/06/0127227 Harm from the Hague - By Richard Stallman - Europeans have energetically opposed and thwarted the attempt to introduce software patents in Europe. A proposed treaty, now being negotiated, threatens to subject software developers in Europe and other countries to U.S. software patents -- and other harmful laws from around the world. The problem is not just for programmers; authors of all kinds will face new dangers. Even the censorship laws of various countries could have globalized effect. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/06/08/1417223&mode=thread EuroLinux: How to protest the Hague Convention Friday June 08, 12:18 PM EDT [ Patents and Trademarks ] - By Grant Gross - Members of the EuroLinux Alliance are calling on members of the European Open Source community to protest a proposed change in European Union law that could cause the EU to accept U.S. software patents. St?fane Fermigier, a leader of AFUL [the French-speaking Linux and Free Software user association], suggested European Open Source software users contact their local members of parliament or members of the EU parliament to object to parts of the proposed Hague Convention. The Hague treaty, which would allow participating countries to recognize each others' jurisdiction in international disputes, would essentially enforce participating countries' patent laws and censorship laws across all countries signing on. http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/06/06/0016249&mode=thread U.S. Internet patents to be enforced in EU ?Paris. 2001-06-05. The draft Hague Convention is to be revised from June 6th. The Hague Convention defines a set of provisions for the execution of foreign judgements in the event of international disputes. Current drafts include industrial property and intellectual property within the potential scope of the proposed Convention. If the current draft were approved, the Hague Convention would eventually allow: 1.to enforce US Internet patents in EU; 2.to enforce non-EU laws in order to censor EU Internet web sites. </Reminder Links> ----- Forwarded message from James Love <love(a)cptech.org> ----- From: James Love <love(a)cptech.org> Organization: http://www.cptech.org To: info-policy-notes <info-policy-notes(a)lists.essential.org> Subject: [IPN] EC consultation on the Hague treaty on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments X-BeenThere: info-policy-notes(a)lists.essential.org List-Help: <mailto:info-policy-notes-request@lists.essential.org?subject=help> List-Post: <mailto:info-policy-notes@lists.essential.org> List-Subscribe: <http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/info-policy-notes>, <mailto:info-policy-notes-request@lists.essential.org?subject=subscribe> List-Id: Notes on Information Policy issues from CPT <info-policy-notes.lists.essential.org> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/info-policy-notes>, <mailto:info-policy-notes-request@lists.essential.org?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/info-policy-notes/> EC consultation on the Hague treaty on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments * The European Commission is finally doing a public consultation on the proposed Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments. The proposed (but not firm) meeting date is October 24 in Brussels, and the deadline for signing up to testify is October 15. People can also submit written comments. Everything can be done by email to: mailto:JAI-coop-jud-civil@cec.eu.int * It is expected that the music, movie, software and other e-commerce businsses will turn up in force. Copyright owners are expected to push to have copyright included in the convention. There should be a difference of views expressed on inclusion of copyrights, patents and trademarks, as well as speech related civil litigation, including defamation and libel, plus a host of other issues. * FMI, http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/badly.html http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/whatyoushouldknow.html http://www.hcch.net/e/members/members.html * It is important that people who have concerns about the inclusion of speech and intellectual property in the convention make their views known. If the convention is widely adopted and includes intellectual property, European citizens will be subject to restrictive and broad e-commerce and software patents issued in the US, Japan and other countries, the USA and other countries DMCA style legislation, and more generally, the most restrictive global IP regimes, which will limit the public's rights even more than whatever national laws currently exist (the "weakest link" problem). If speech related torts are included, the defamation laws in China, Jordan, Egypt, the UK and elsewhere will have global reach. * Persons who participate in the consultation should also address the need to protect the public from one-sided and unreasonable "click-on" contracts, such as the recent Microsoft EULA for Frontpage, what says, for example: "You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services, infringe any intellectual property or other rights of these parties, violate any state, federal or international law, or promote racism, hatred or pornography." For more examples of click-on contract terms, see: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/ucita/licenses/ * To sign-up to testify, send an email note to: JAI-coop-jud-civil(a)cec.eu.int Jamie Love <love(a)cptech.org> -------- Original Message -------- Commission Hearing on the Draft Convention of the Conference of the Hague on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters Deadline to apply: October 15, 2001 Provisional date for the Hearing: 24 October 2001 at the Charlemagne Building, Rue de la Loi, 170 - 1040 Brussels To attend, a short registration form is available at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/unit/civil/audition10_01/en/index.htm Please complete this form in BLOCK LETTERS and e-mail it (JAI-coop-jud-civil(a)cec.eu.int) or fax it (+32/2-299.64.57) before 15 October 2001 Written answers to questions (feel free to answer only a few): http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/unit/civil/audition10_01/en/index.htm should be email to: JAI-coop-jud-civil(a)cec.eu.int or fax it (+32/2-299.64.57 before the hearing. The First Diplomatic Conference in June 2001, produced an "Interim Text" (available at: http://www.hcch.net/e/workprog/jdgm.html) which contains many options and alternatives for issues of concerns for consumers. There had been several informal meetings of experts on E-commerce and intellectual property related issues but these questions were found to be difficult and controversial. There was little consensus on many other issues such as consumer and employment contracts. Thus, the General Affairs and Policy Commission of the Hague Conference decided to defer to January 2002 the decision concerning the continuation of the negotiations. Consultations are to be undertaken between now and then to determine the preconditions for the conclusion of the negotiations relating to both the substance and the method and timetable for future negotiations. In this context, the Commission is organizing a hearing in Brussels to cover the latest status of the Convention. The questionnaire include among other topics: the need for such a Convention, the proposed structure of the Convention, its scope, general rule of jurisdiction, choice of court, contracts concluded with consumers, employment contracts, torts, patent and trademark rights, copyrights, provisionnal and protective measures and relationship between the Hague Convention and European instruments. Note: the agenda has not been finalized yet but we know it will be a day-long hearing with probably a few speakers addressing selected issues. _______________________________________________ Info-policy-notes mailing list Info-policy-notes(a)lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/info-policy-notes ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Xavi Drudis Ferran xdrudis(a)tinet.org

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FSF Europe at the System 2001 (Munich/Germany)
by V.Dormeyer＠t-online.de 24 Sep '01

24 Sep '01

Hello everyone, it's definitive now that we will have a booth in the GNU/LinuxPark at the Systems 2001 (International Trade Fair for Information Technology) from 15 to 19 October in Munich/Germany. To man the booth, we are looking for additional volunteers who have fun to represent the FSF Europe at Systems 2001. The fair takes five days and it would be good to have at least two people every day to represent the FSF Europe. It would be ideal to have incl. me three people a day to man the booth. If you are interested, please contact me and tell me your timeframe (the day/days when do you wish to participate). I will contact you immediately. regards, Volker -- Volker Dormeyer # V.Dormeyer(a)t-online.de

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[Pointer] CfV Deletion of de.comp.gnu
by Matthias Leisi 20 Sep '01

20 Sep '01

For those of you reading the german-speaking newsgroup de.comp.gnu and who might have missed it: The 2. CfV for the deletion of de.comp.gnu has just been posted (Message-ID: <CfV2-loeschung-de.comp.gnu-05.09.2001(a)dana.de>) to de.admin.news.announce. Since the rules in de.* for campaining on CfVs outside of Usenet are rather strict, I'm not posting any opinion or suggestion on the content of the CfV or your ballot. To get a picture of the discussion, please read the threads starting with the Message-IDs <RfD1-loeschung-de.comp.gnu-26.07.2001(a)dana.de> and <RfD2-loeschung-de.comp.gnu-10.08.2001(a)dana.de> in de.admin.news.groups (take a few hours of time for the suggested reading ;) ). Regards, Matthias

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Event: Bernhard Speaks at GIL
by Bernhard Reiter 19 Sep '01

19 Sep '01

In case somebody wants to put it on the event pages: Bernhard Reiter will speak about Free Software -- Advantages for Science and Economy in German at the Yearly convention of the GIL. 22. GIL-Jahrestagung 19. bis 21. September 2001 Hansestadt Rostock http://www.agrarinformatik.de/tagprog_an-2001.html "Gesellschaft für Informatik in der Land-, Forst- und Ernährungswirtschaft" aka "German Association for Informatics in Agriculture, Forestry and Nutrition" The talk is scheduled 20.9.2001 at 17:00, the convention needs registration and takes a convention fee. Anyway it might be interesting for some people to know. I will speak more knowledge about Free Software. Bernhard

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Re: European Commission
by Loic Dachary 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

Marc Eberhard writes: > Hi Loic! > > On Thu, Sep 13, 2001 at 05:56:40PM +0200, Loic Dachary wrote: > > I wonder if someone else received a similar form. I guess people > > who registered at http://candidature.cordis.lu/expert-evaluators/ all did. > > I registered, but I didn't receive it. Someone rightfully suggested that those were probably sent depending on the date when one applied. I applied around August 10 2001. Did you apply earlier or later ? I'm trying to guess what is the rationale behind this. -- Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org 24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org 75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt

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European Commission
by Loic Dachary 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

Hi, I just received a form asking if I would be available between 12/11/2001 and 17/11/2001 to evaluate projects submissions (http://www.cordis.lu/ist/ka4/tesss/impl_free.htm#2001). I wonder if someone else received a similar form. I guess people who registered at http://candidature.cordis.lu/expert-evaluators/ all did. Cheers, -- Loic Dachary http://www.dachary.org/ loic(a)dachary.org 24 av Secretan http://www.senga.org/ loic(a)senga.org 75019 Paris Tel: 33 1 42 45 09 16 loic(a)gnu.org GPG Public Key: http://www.dachary.org/loic/gpg.txt

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Pages on Education on fsfeurope.org
by Christian Selig 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

Hello to all of you, I'm happy to announce that I've finished the education section on the fsfeurope.org web site. I kindly invite you to read and critize it. Especially problematic is the French main page, because my French is not that good :) Bye, Christian P.S.: No, this posting has no place on web(a)fsfeurope.org, because it's about content. P.P.S.: I'm not subscribed to discussion(a)fsfeurope.org; please CC: me or I'll kill -9 you. -- I am chaos. I am the substance from which your artists and scientists build rhythms. I am the spirit with which your children and clowns laugh in happy anarchy. I am chaos. I am alive, and tell you that you are free. - Eris, Goddess Of Chaos, Discord & Confusion

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Does the website need philsoophy essays?
by Alistair Davidson 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

This is an email I just sent to my father, in an attempt to get him to license his music (he's in a Scottish folk band called "Tarneybackle") under the Open Audio License of the EFF. For those who don't know it, it's like the GPL but for music. The reference to a website at the end is because I'm making the band's website and want to license it under the GFDL- my father had no objections to that. I've snipped the beginning of the email, because it's about other things. It occured to me after I sent it that with some editing, it could be useful as a philosophy essay on the website. If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll transform it from a letter into an essay, and maybe refocus it on software rather than music. If I've made any factual errors, corrections would be welcomed :0) Feel free to correct my spellign or grammar, but it would be pretty pointless if I'm going to be rewiriting it anyway. Important note: I've made the "freedom" argument to my dad before, with mixed success. I deliberately focus on the "economic" argument this time to see if it works better. Now, if you think back to your economics classes, you'll remember that in an environment where competition exists, prices approach the marginal cost. So if it costs £100 to create a prototype, and £1 to produce each copy of that, the price shouldn't be too much higher than £1 once competition has come into play. Obviously, companies like to have a profit margin and need to recoup their initial investment, but certainly the cost of one unit should be under £1.50. Imagine that what you're producing is music, or software, or some other form of information. Suddenly, the marginal cost is extremely close to 0. In fact, it may be 0, with a one-off cost to seed distribution of your music, and all further distribution performed by your listeners. It seems ludicrous, in such an environment, to charge for distribution. The price tends towards the marginal cost, so the price of your music should be extremely low, if you allow listeners to make their own copies. What's needed is a way of covering that one-off cost. Companies and some individuals that profit from the sale of information would have us believe that a non-scarce resource should cost money. They try to enforce this idea by making a non-scarce resource scarce, using copyright laws. They talk of "intellectual property" and "copyright theft". But "intellectual property" is not like normal property. If I commit an act of "copyright theft", I don't deprive the owner of their "property", like with normal theft. So, how do you cover the cost of creation (as apposed to the cost of production/marginal cost, which is effectively 0)? There are a number of ways. The most popular right now is to charge for additional value that is sold on top of your product- for example, making CDs and charging money for them is okay, because there is a significant marginal cost, and your listeners gain value from things like sleave notes, and the benefits of having the music on a physical medium. Red Hat software gives away its Linux distribution (you can download it from their website, and it regularly appears on magazine cover-disks), but if you pay them money they will also provide technical support, and an automated update service. Richard M Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (that's free-as-in-freedom, not free-as-in-beer), supported himself for some time by giving away the Emacs text editor- he only charged if you wanted it on disk. He also made money by customising the software for companies- if a company wanted feature x, they could pay him to add it. Red Hat turned profitable earlier this year, in an environment where many established IT companies are struggling- even Microsoft is frantically trying to find new business models, because most people no longer see any need to upgrade to the latest version of Windows or Office or whatever, they had 95% of user's needs covered by Windows 98 + Office 97 + Internet Explorer 5.0. There's a second method, which is slowly gaining ground. This is to distribute your product free of charge, and ask altruistic listeners/readers/users to give you small donations if they like what you do- kind of like a busker. It sometimes helps to point out that if you don't recieve enough donations to break even, you won't be able to offer music or your comic or your software any more. Kuro5hin.org gets money from advertising, and also offers an advertisment-free version, if you pay a subscription fee. Many online comics and garage bands also make money from selling t-shirts and so on. There's one final myth that needs to be exploded- that if there's no way to make money from software development / music / comics / book-writing / whatever, people will stop doing it. This is patently not true. You've been playing music for years, mostly at a loss. I have an online comic, which makes me no money but costs me none either. The world has thousands of garage bands and underground magazines and so on that barely cover their costs- why do they do it? The simple reason is that creating things is fun, and it's nice when people gain enjoyment from your work. Personally, I don't want art that's created solely for money- I'd rather have one decent amateur musician than a thousand Brittany Spears clones. It's like "the Economist" was saying a while ago; the music industry wants to create artificial scarcity of information not because this is the best way of ensuring future creation of art, or because it's best for the artists, or the public. They want artificial scarcity in order to protect their existing business models. I hope you can understand my position on copyright now. I don't necessarily want complete abolition, but huge reform is needed for copyright to keep in step with new technologies, and creating scarcity where none need exist is *not* the kind of reform I mean. I'd ask that if you agree with any of my arguments here, you carefully consider the license under which your music will be published, think about using the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Open Audio License for the works that are copyrighted to Tarneybackle, and your interpretations of traditional songs (can performances of traditional songs be copyrighted?). There's a FAQ about the license here: http://www.eff.org/IP/Open_licenses/20010421_eff_oal_faq.html The license itself is here: http://www.eff.org/IP/Open_licenses/eff_oal.html The GNU Free Documentation License, which is the license I intend to apply to the website, is here: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html -- Alistair _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: Mandrake license
by Josef Dalcolmo 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

bh(a)intevation.de said: > What exactly does the license apply to? If it's the distribution as a > whole then it may be legal. > The distribution as a whole can be seen as a collection of copyrighted > works that can be copyrighted as a whole independently of the > individual components. Mandrake can choose any license they like for > it. Ah - ok that is it. Indeed it is the license that covers the distribution as a whole I am referring to. So such a distribution is not considered to be a "derivative work" I suppose, since it is composed on a different level. - Josef

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Discussion September 2001